MLP Collectable Card Game: 2x decks and 2x shiny cards for me and Craig making Top 8 (that’s a big deal if you’re as vague as me when it comes to this game). Also, free t-shirts for each of us too.

Plushies: Discord and Sunset Shimmer. Had to talk Craig out of buying Cheese Sandwich, since that was bought and hidden last month in preparation for his birthday (which is in November). Obviously, I had to come clean on why he couldn’t buy the plush he wanted, so hence it’s on this blog.

We got a “Hairy Babies” print by reaperfox, who is one of the nicest people ever. Seriously, I could have talked ponies and eBay and everything with her all day.

And, despite telling myself repeatedly that I wanted the “envy” hair colour (dark green), I came away with two hanks each of Key Lime (light green) and Sour Apple Martini (neon green).

The on to the ponies, I think a bullet list will be best:

Baby Halfnote

Blossom (baity, but collector’s pose, so she’s getting re-haired)

Bluebell

Butterscotch

Dancing Butterflies

Floater (duplicate because I love her colours)

Gusty (because when I smoked, I smoked around her, and she went beige, so I wanted a pristine one on my shelf while I sun bleach my poor girl, who I treated badly)

North Start

Powder

Sky Rocket

Stardancer (x2 – I kind of ran amok)

Starshine

Steamer/Tracks (Big Brother)

Strawberry Fair (another one, a gift from Craig, because he knows how much I love her, I really do have the best husband ever)

Tic Tac Toe and Baby Tic Tac Toe

Truly (So Soft), who I’ve always loved for the pose she was in

Wave Runner

Windy

Craig bought baits for his project:

Galaxy

Lemon Drop

Lickety-Split

Masquerade (bait for me)

Sundance

Sweet Stuff (we have so many copies of her in the house)

Tootsie

I don’t even want to look at how much I spent, but it was worth every penny.

I have a fleet of Strawberry Fairs. And yes, this collection will keep growing. Originally, I said I didn’t see the point of having more than one of any pony, but she’s special. And now that I’ve got the G4 customs of her and her baby, I now need the same for G3. I also need a boy pony of Strawberry Fair. I just need ALL THE STRAWBERRY FAIRS! (I will neither confirm nor deny the rumour I bought a dolls house, specifically to customise into SF colours, for my fleet to live in.)

I just need a moment to gloat on getting hold of the G4 customs. They are by a very talented creator, starshinecustoms, and they are gorgeous. It must have taken ages to paint all the strawberries on them, and G4s are small, so it would be fiddly work. I’m just delighted with my purchase.

Note: everything is much prettier than it looks in the photos. That particular room has a really orange light most of the time (when it’s not blue light from the computer). It’s hard to get a good picture in that room, but since I was over-excited about my purchases, I just took some snaps anyway.

I bought these from a very nice person on Facebook. In one smooth transaction, I cleared six off my wish list.

Gingerbread, Snowflake, Parasol, Moonstone, Blossom, Moondancer

Also that day, a package arrived for my husband. I texted him a picture of it (never text my husband saying “parcel for you”, he always wants a picture, so he can guess what’s in it), and he sent back. “Can’t remember what’s in that. Could you open it for me?”

Mystery Parcel (29 April)

To be honest, he does this a lot, and I usually seethe a little more than I did this day, as I work from home and really shouldn’t be opening post as it arrives. However, I was riding a pony high, so obligingly opened it.

Contents of Mystery Parcel (29 April)Bubbles, Sweet Stuff and Posey

And in one mystery parcel, I cleared another two off my wish list. How awesome is my husband?

I hasten to add, it’s not that I don’t want any pony, my wish list comprises the ponies I really want to own right now. And since I’ve cleared a slew of them, I’ll be updating it soon.

Also, I received Baby Cotton Candy, a crib and a stroller. And a week later I came by a MLP Annual from 1988 and yet more custom hair. This time from Retro Dolls.

At a car boot, I managed to find five Gen 3s, all with accessories at £2 each, and about half an hour ago, wonderful husband of mine just walked in with another Gen 3 that he’d found at the market. This one is Cherry Blossom (II). Again I say: how awesome is my husband? And actually, he’s more awesome than you think. After he handed me Cherry Blossom, he said, “I’m pretty sure she’s a Gen 3, and I checked her hooves for the Hasbro mark, then I checked her for pony cancer and rusty butt.” Yes, yes, I married someone that cool.

I do have photos of some G3s, but it’s still a work in progress, I’m thinking of doing massive picspam pages for each generation.

My Collection (22 April 2015)

And a few weeks later:

My Collection (9 May 2015)

Please note there’s another Dream Castle (rather baity) on the floor in front of the shelves.

I did pretty well last week, I went shopping with a friend, and managed to find the MLP notepad and pen set in Wilkinsons. I also tried to get my friend to buy the same for work, but since she’s a probate lawyer, she said no. I then tried to get her to buy a set with “thoughts of a genius” written on it. She also said no. She does not have my arrogance.

Then on Sunday, Craig and I hit the car boot. I got the purple Phony and Strawberry Reef (very pink pony with red hair) for 50p each, and I generally believe it’s good luck to buy a phony at a car boot.

And I was rewarded with a bag of ponies for £2 in total. It contained 3x Gen 3 and 3x Gen 2 (and that tiny pink pony). Definitely a win.

Goodies – 19 April 2015

I also got two barbies, because they were cute. Also in the pic is Morning Glory (a gift from Nickerty Split) and Lucky (my 10p find at the first boot sale I went to). Not sure why.

Anyway, when purchasing my mixed bag of ponies, the seller gave me a tip. “I find,” she said, “when they get a bit grubby, I just pop ’em in the dishwasher.” In response, my jaw dropped in horror, and husband quickly jumped in with thanks on that tip.

Four Oxy baths later and her body is finally free of the rust that was inside it. However, her mane and tail are awful. I asked Nickerty what to do, and she said to just call time of death and customise her. I’m going to try a few more washes, and maybe some light straightening using copious amounts of conditioner and the iron on its lowest setting, but ultimately, I’ll probably just re-root her using some hair I’ve got lying around. Not her original colours, because I don’t have any of the right colours.

I haven’t even got the heads off the others, but I fear the worst. I will say that Sunny Daze is now beautifully clean.

So this week has been a ridiculously good week in terms of ponies. First of all, there was the excitement of the mystery post.

I work from home, and I haven’t had a desk in the office for nearly two years, so I was a little surprised when Facilities emailed me to say there was a package for me on reception. “Sarah Canfield” is not exactly the most common name in the world so they were pretty certain it was for me. They phoned to check, and my married surname was on there too, so it had to be for me. I gave them my address, and then quickly emailed all my friends to see whether they’d had a package too — was it work-related? Friends quickly confirmed that no packages were being sent to them. Then supportively added that it was probably a gift-wrapped P45 (the form you get when you and a company part ways). My friends are adorable.

So, I worried for a day, and practically hung up on my manager when there was a knock at the door with the post.

This is what my mystery post contained:

Morning Glory

And once I knew it contained a pony, I was fairly sure who had sent it. Once I checked the name of the pony, Morning Glory, I was certain. It was my friend Nickerty-Split, who commented on my first post about ponies. She is made of awesome.

Next up, a batch of bait ponies I’d been watching for a week came to an end. And I got scooped in the last six seconds. So I raged to Nic, and we talked about her must-have pony, Moonstone. While looking on eBay for a suitable pony, I found a dream castle, which I paid less than £20 for, including post fees. And this is it:

So, after a quick trip around Yorkshire, I am £2.50 worse off, but I do have new toys.

My first find was a naked Barbie for 50p. Craig (husband) said I should’ve argued down to 20p, but I’m rubbish at stuff like that. So he took charge after that.

Next up, we found a pink pony, not an official MLP, but a “fakie”. (Why on earth are these things not referred to as My Little Phonies? Seriously fandom, you missed a trick.) That one was 10p, which Craig treated me to. A few minutes later I found what I thought was a really good Phony, but turned out to be an original Gen 1 baby brother, for 20p. He’s called “Lucky the Stallion”. What is he, like the Fabio of Equestria?

Pink Phony and Lucky the Stallion

Next up Craig located a slew of Barbies, which we were offered at £2 the lot, including clothes, which provided enough to clothe the naked Barbie I bought earlier (she’s on the far left).

Barbies

The haul includes Pocahontas, which I didn’t even realise until we were in the car going home (as they were all naked, stacked on top of the clothes), and a darker Barbie, which is why Craig pointed her out. The ultimate goal is to customise these dolls until they look like characters from the Talking Dead. Also, by “darker”, I mean like a teensy-tiny bit darker with black hair. I’m thinking of dying her and Pocahontas until they’re the right skin tones for purpose, but for the time being, it was a good start. The middle doll has lovely hair. A bit fluffy, but long and uncut and exactly the right colour for Flick.

The barbie with the buzzcut (we all had one, didn’t we?) is getting re-rooted with pink hair, which I bought from MyLittleCustoms (I bought Fairy’s Breath and CandyTuft, I’m going with the latter for Charlie). As for the one on the far left, my first purchase, I’m not sure about her. She might get customised into Eva, since she seems to have nice hair and I’m never short of red hair dye in the house. Not actually sure that you can use people hair dye on dolls though, but it is only wash-in-wash-out stuff. Failing that, she’ll become Red, so either way, she’s getting red hair.

The clothes are pretty ragged, but can be fixed quite easily. Also, they’ll be good for patterns, when I come to make custom clothes for them. The top on the far left is wrecked, but if it wasn’t pink and red, it’s something Tam would wear. Also in the bundle of dolls was an ugly thing that I don’t even know what it is and a GI Joe, which I have no interest in, but he’s wearing cargo pants, which will quickly be appropriated for Tam, who is all about the comfy clothes that can carry many weapons.

I visited my mother this weekend, and I came away with a car (thanks, mum!) and also anticipated that I would be roped into dealing with something electrical – last time it was setting up a printer (which turned into a ‘splosion of rage, wherein I informed mother I could not deal with making her ancient Windows XP laptop play with her brand-new Windows 8-compatible printer).

As it turned out she needed a new batter in a smoke alarm (yes, the really old kind) in the loft room. Craig (husband) volunteered to sort this out, went upstairs, and called out, “Wife… your ponies are ganging up on me!”

I then sat down on the floor and explained the nature of the relationships between them. I swear husband’s eyes glazed over, but he later said that I was “the cutest thing ever”.

If you want to know, Strawberry Fair is best friends with Bouquet, and they adopted Snowflake (who has no cutie mark and no official name because she was a gift from the MLP Fanclub in the 80s), and I was pretty convinced that Daddy Apple Delight was in love with Strawberry Fair because Mommy Apple Delight appears a bit clingy. The only other male is Wigwam, but he never wanted to date anyone. Craig asked if he was gay, I thought he might be, but on reflection, I think he’s probably asexual, because he never craved any kind of romantic attachment.

Then we both decided that since Strawberry Fair and Bouquet were so close, and adopted a baby together, they might actually be a couple. They were certainly the leads in all of my stories back in the day.

Anyway I said I wanted to take some home with me. Then I said all of them (because the others can never know that they’re not my favourites). Then Craig asked where they’d live. So then I said none of them. Then I looked at them again. Then I said all of them.

With that decided, I got googling. At first my google searches were a bit general (how to wash doll hair), and then I got more specific, which led me to The My Little Pony Preservation Project. Also, I used StrawberryReef.com to identify the ponies I couldn’t remember the names of.

And now I’m on a roll. I’m going to post my progress.

And finally, I want to show you Gusty. Gusty is not my original pony. I never owned Gusty back in the day, but when I went to my best friend’s house, she always let me have Gusty as my pony when we played. I loved Gusty. I mentioned this to Carla once.

A couple of weeks later, Gusty arrived in the post as a gift. ♥

So, now I’ve introduced her to Strawberry Fair and Bouquet and Snowflake, and I hope she’ll settle in nicely.

Gusty, Snowflake, Strawberry Fair

(No pictures of Bouquet, because I haven’t cleaned her yet.)

As you can see, there are some stains on Strawberry Fair – biro marks and felt pen. Although you can’t see it, Snowflake has the same thing, where I drew a cutie mark on her. I’m working on ways to get these off the ponies, and I plan to curl their hair once they are fully clean. If the hair cannot be tamed, I’m going to re-root it, having nipped out to the shops to buy all the necessary to make a tool to do this, although I couldn’t get to the market to buy the synthetic hair needed. I’m watching a few “bait” ponies on eBay (a pony someone has deemed so unuseable, there’s no point in doing anything than ripping it up for the parts to make a custom pony) to practice re-rooting the hair on. I’m not touching my precious babies until I’ve got this hair thing down.

Gusty has turned beige, so I need to stick her in a window and sun bleach her back to normal. Thankfully, Mum had kept my ponies on the floor, right where the sun caught them, so she’s inadvertently done a lot of sun bleaching on my behalf already.

Also, there are two Gen 2 or 3 ponies in the background. I just bought them about five years ago so I had something cute to put on my desk. I need to identify them, but they’re low priority because they’re not my childhood ponies

Ten Things You Get When You Work With Carla and Sarah

1. Two for the price of one. One of us is English, the other American. One always lies. One tells the truth. We have an excel programme which will tell you how to figure out which is which. That’s thanks to Sarah. Carla did a logic puzzle type thing by hand to figure it out. Carla won. (This paragraph could have been written by the liar.)

This is standard for us. Professionally done hair and makeup with PJs. In Vegas.

2. Diversity. Super important to us. (Neither of us lie about that.) (Or do we?) (No, we don’t.) We’re both queer, and Carla is biracial. Carla has bipolar disorder and hates when people use “crazy” and “insane” and the like as insults or description of things that are not actually mental illness. Sarah hates this too, and frequently hijacks work-related conversations on Lync to educate her co-workers. Carla has a lot of rage and is shouty. We write queer characters, characters of color, and characters who have mental illness. And some are queer characters of color with mental illness because intersectionality exists.

3. Wrestling references. You think we’re joking?

Nope

Every single character surname is a reference to a pro wrestler. Some first names too. Yes, we know it’s fake. (We prefer predetermined.) Pretty sure our ghost story with vampires is also fake. Sarah and her hubby convinced Carla to start watching wrestling because it was a soap opera with violence that had two really hot twin brothers, Jimmy and Jey Uso, wrestling as a tag team. Carla’s not looked back since. And once she was into WWE, CZW was an easy step forward. After all…

Scotty Vortekz v Deranged (ToD9)

Violence. Lots and lots of violence.

4. Pets. Our pets are ridiculously adorable. We’re also pretty sure they have Skype sessions while we’re at work because they keep teaching each other tricks. Wall of death is now a thing in both our homes. Carla has a four-year-old Australian cattle dog/beagle mix she rescued about a year ago.

But why did you stop petting me?

Sarah has two charming cats.

Cats. They can be stacked.

Also, we are well aware that you’re looking at this thinking “Oh, a cat, like I haven’t seen that before.” You haven’t. Not like this.

This is not a Thundercat. This is an Undercat.

5. A story not set in New York or London. We are aware that they are the only places that the movies know exist, however, we’re aware of other places. Like Yorkshire. We really like little seaside towns with a dark side and terrifying piers.

6. Magic and monsters. We like to write about werewolves and demons and vampires and witches, oh my, friendly and angry ghosts, and creepy abandoned places. Sarah brings the snarky dialog. Carla loves spooky description. There’s fisticuffs and snogging and fucking garden gnomes. (Not, uh, literally fucking – Sarah is English and, as such, blushes at the mere mention of intimacy. The liar could be typing this.)

7. Hard work. We’re both critical of our writing. We have an excellent group of early readers who are critical of our writing. We outline and re-outline, write and rewrite (and then talk wrestling before heading back to the story), and we’re more than willing to tear a story entirely apart to make it better.

8. The ability to take criticism. (“I’m English and, as such, I crave disappointment.” – Bill Bailey) Both of us work at law firms, and if that doesn’t explain enough about us, nothing will. Plus Carla has a degree in writing and publishing, which involved A LOT of criticism. Sarah has a mother, which also involves A LOT of criticism. We love criticism. Bring it on.

9. Data analysis. I mean, it’s got nothing to do with anything, but if you need some data analysing, Sarah will do it for fun. (Carla hates Excel. Don’t even bother asking her for help.)

10. Our gratitude. We know we’ve been extremely privileged to have input from such excellent early readers, and if you choose us, we’ll be lucky to receive your help as well. We appreciate all the mentors taking the time to read the entries for Pitch Wars. Many thanks to Brenda Drake and all the volunteers who make this happen. Best of luck to all the hopeful mentees.

Pitch Wars is a contest put on by Brenda Drake which matches writers with mentors. Mentors review submissions (query letter and first chapter to start) and choose a person (or writing team) to work with for a few months on a completed manuscript. Then mentees take their polished works and pitch to agents, who, we hope, will love what they read. We submitted THE TALKING DEAD, a YA supernatural mystery about murders, missing ghosts and the importance of warm socks.

You can find Carla on Twitter at carlamlee, and Sarah on Twitter at girl_canfield. Check out the bios of all the other Pitch War mentee hopefuls here.

I’ve been an insomniac since I was nine. I don’t want to imply that I’ve been awake since I was nine years old, it just started then. It came in irregular waves throughout my childhood and teenage years, became a regular visitor in my early twenties, and has become my constant companion since.

Carla and I once read a book where the lead character complained that “sometimes her insomnia persisted for three days at a time”. When we were done laughing, we moved on to the wanting to stab stage. Then I moved on to the crying in the bath stage.

I haven’t slept well since February, not consistently. Fortunately, when on holiday, my body is so shocked that I’ve left the country (it happens about once every eight years) it goes into shutdown mode. I spent most of my time in Vegas, when not getting wed, or watching Meat Loaf or WWE, either asleep or frantically praying I would stay awake long enough to get to my bed.

February aside, I’ve had trouble sleeping for so long I can’t remember the last time I was sleeping consistently, I’d hazard a guess at around 2008, but that also coincided with a heavy bout of depression that just made me want to sleep all the time. Uncharacteristically for me, I was actually able to sleep too.

I don’t know how insomnia works for everyone else but for me, my body slowly subtracts the amount of sleep I’m getting per night until I get to the point when I’ve been up for about 40 hours, then I have a massive shutdown, and start the process again.

You have no idea how many holiday days I’ve wasted at work by phoning my manager in tears saying “I’ve been up since the day before yesterday, please let me take a holiday!” Thankfully, so far, my managers have been incredibly understanding about this. Although one is prone to saying things like, “Have you tried cutting out caffeine?” or “My friend swears by a few drops of lavender in the bath at night.”

Just FYI, if you ever run into someone with insomnia, these little bits of advice provoke a rage that would ordinarily result in homicide if we weren’t too fucking tired to stab you.

Walks in the evening only work right before shutdown, which is going to happen anyway, but sometimes it will bring it on a few hours early.

Nytol (over-the-counter herbal sleeping aids) and others of the same ilk don’t do anything at all.

Sleeping pills are dangerously addictive, and largely anyone who thinks they’re being given sleeping pills are actually receiving anti-depressants, which I have been on and off for thirteen years (both for depression and insomnia), with no discernible effect on my sleep.

If anyone has had much success with any of the above, they are more likely to be someone suffering from sleepless nights, rather than insomnia. There is a difference between the odd bout of being unable to sleep and years of constant problems getting to sleep, staying asleep and getting good sleep on a nightly basis.

Saturday night, for example, I had dinner with the husband, watched an episode of Person of Interest, and realised I was dozing halfway through. I always give dozing more credit than it deserves. It happens about halfway through the whole cycle of not-sleep. When it does happen, I take myself off to bed. (I still adhere to that rule about only sleeping in the bedroom, and only using the bedroom for sleep, so as not to accidentally teach myself bad habits – this works about as well as fucking Nytol.) I then lay in bed for five hours straight, wide awake. Then I got up and watched Nightmare on Elm Street (what could be more apt?). Then read all the related TV Tropes pages. Yes. All of them.

At 7:20 a.m. I forced myself to go back to bed. Not because I was sleepy, but because I had to try. I lay awake for another few hours. And finally slept for a couple of hours.

This happens every time I doze. And still I get ridiculously hopeful that I’m about to get real sleep.

And anyone who doesn’t have insomnia must surely be thinking, well, if you can’t sleep, at least you can use that time productively.

No.

You try getting by on a couple of hours’ sleep a night, and then using the rest of that time for anything of use. First of all, it’s the middle of the night/early hours of the morning. This is not a good time to run around with the vacuum. Also, it’s not a great time to use your brain. The less sleep I have, the dumber I get. It takes me longer to process information (so I read very slowly) and I feel very emotionally raw, which means I can’t even talk to Carla, my fellow insomniac, at times, because I feel too fragile. I can do these things with my time, but it’s a lot harder, and I get a lot less enjoyment from it.

Just to clarify, it’s now Monday, 2:32 a.m. I haven’t slept since. And I’m not even sleepy. Exhausted. But not sleepy.

Another thing I run into: “Oh, I know how you feel. I have a baby.”

No, you do not know how I feel. Craig and I did not plan for this. We did not sit down, discuss the situation and agree to bring insomnia into my life. Insomnia doesn’t smile at me, make me melt inside and make it all worthwhile. Although, on the other side of it, insomnia will never ask me for a car or money for college, so, there is that. A baby is (mostly) a choice. Insomnia is just a bad thing that happens to good people.

So, once again I have failed to post this mid-month, which is something I really ought to get on top of, but here is the update on our writing projects.

As a side note, I feel like writing something by myself – something not good, I hasten to add – just to keep me out of mischief. I have no solo projects at the moment. Actually this is true for both me and Carla, since we write all of our good ideas together. I feel like writing something awful, something unpublishable, all by myself, just for the lols. I feel like hitting every Mary Sue trope available, and just amusing myself with it all.

Overall though, the horror series below is coming on in leaps and bounds, and we’d really like first drafts finished by June, so we can say we did five books in five months. (That’s right, isn’t it, C? I’ve lost track of time.)

UK Horror Series

(This series co-written with Carla.)

1: Talking Dead
Young adult supernatural adventure. Status: First draft complete and with first readers. We’re starting to get really helpful feedback.

2: Monsters & Music
Young adult supernatural adventures. Status: First draft complete. Editing, but won’t send to first readers until the series is finished.

3: Supernatural Slumber Party
Young adult supernatural adventures. Status: First draft complete. Editing, but won’t send to first readers until the series is finished.

4: Wicked Witches
Young adult supernatural adventures. Status: First draft complete. Editing, but won’t send to first readers until the series is finished.

5: The Monster Mash
Young adult supernatural adventures. Status: First draft in progress.

About Me
The girl who codes. The smug little know-it-all. The wrestling fan. The girl who does “Tea and Terror” every weekend. The girl who wants to be a writer of young/new adult fiction. Co-writes with Carla Lee.

The People I MentionCarla (BFF, co-writer and epic troll)
Kim (BFF, fellow tea-drinker and epic troll)
Craig (husband, gamer and epic troll)
Intern (Carla's nephew, bossy boots, and not much of a troll)